I forgot about the revealing dress and went to put my hand on his shoulder. I leaned in, trying to catch his eyes. “Are you okay? Did you get hurt at practice or something?”
“Just a cramp,” he said, clearing his throat once again.
I took his arm, trying to help him to stand. “Try standing up. Curling up like that is only going to make it worse.”
Chris tried to wave me off, but I knew I was right. He needed to stretch it out.
I took his other hand and tugged his huge frame up, and nearly pulled him into myself. Except the first thing I felt wasn’t his chest colliding with mine. It was the warm, hard point of something pressing against my belly just before our bodies crashed together.
Chris pushed away from me and turned, adjusting himself as he shook with laughter. “You brought that on yourself. You know that, right?”
“Was that—” I stammered. “Seriously? What are you, some hormonal middle schooler?”
“Look at you!” he said, still barely holding back laughter. “You’re like the mummy, except mummy is rocking a body under those bandages and they didn’t have enough bandages to wrap her all the way up. What is my dick supposed to do? Close its eye?”
“That is the dumbest, most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. Your dick can’t—no. We’re not having a conversation about your penis right now.”
“I mean,” Chris tilted his hand one way then the other. “We kind of are.”
“Will you just rate the damn dress?”
“Ten out of ten.” he said.
I rolled my eyes, then rushed back toward the fitting room.
Chris let out a low whistle once I turned. “Amendment. Eleven out of ten!”
I flashed him a middle finger, then closed the door of the dressing room.
So much for professionalism.
9
Chris
I was rich, but my brother was a rich bastard. He lived in a rich bastard penthouse in a rich bastard part of New York City. I had a perfectly reasonable, multi-million-dollar bachelor pad in a perfectly reasonable part of the city.
I was sitting at his dining room table with a plate of food made by his wife, Chelsea, in front of me. Chelsea was a notoriously bad cook, and I’d made the mistake of complimenting her lasagna the first time she made it for me.
I’d imagined she’d be out of his life in a few weeks and I would never have to eat it again. Instead…
I jabbed at the rock-hard top layer of raw pasta. It nearly bent the prongs of my fork, then cracked. I thought I might’ve seen a cloud of pasta dust rise up in front of me like I’d just broken the seal on a thousand-year-old lasagna sarcophagus.
Damon was dutifully chewing his mummified lasagna with a look of resignation on his face. I never thought I’d see the day when my brother would actually set his own needs aside to please someone else. It was fascinating—like watching a wild lion doing tricks for a tiny little trainer. Except in this case, the lion probably just hoped he’d get some from the trainer tonight.
Chelsea was a bubbly blonde with an athletic build from her semi-pro tennis career. She’d had the misfortune of popping out one of my brother’s babies, but you wouldn’t know it from looking at her now.
Her spawn—a cute little thing with dark brown pigtails and bright blue eyes—was looking at the lasagna like it deserved to be looked at: with revulsion. I caught Luna’s eye and gave a discreet thumbs down. She nodded enthusiastically, then put her small hands to her neck and acted like she was choking.
Luna was six, and until a year ago, she hadn’t known Damon was her father. I guess good luck like that couldn’t last forever.
Chelsea’s brother, Grant, usually showed up for things like this along with her friend, Milly, but both couldn’t come tonight.
It was probably for the best. At least only the four of us would have to endure this lasagna.
“How is it?” Chelsea asked. “I made sure I got the top crunchy the way you like.”
I smiled. “You nailed that part.”
Chelsea beamed, and I was reminded of why I couldn’t bring myself to tell her that her cooking was criminal. Even if she did have horrible taste for marrying my brother, she was sweet. And some soft part of me liked that my brother had landed himself one of the good ones, even if he didn’t deserve it.
“Don’t like it,” Luna said. “Daddy’s food is better.”
“Luna,” Damon warned. “Your mother’s cooking is delicious.”
“To a goat,” Luna countered.
A snorting sound escaped me, and I had to cover my face to stop from laughing.
“Uh,” I said, hoping to save Chelsea from even more of Luna’s brutal honesty, “I checked out some dresses last night.”
“Yeah?” Chelsea asked. “Did Mindy enjoy that?”
“She wasn’t able to come. I had the wedding planner model the dresses for me instead.”
Damon and Chelsea shared a silent look of worry.
Damon set down his fork, giving me a look I didn’t need to be a detective to decode. “That’s all you did?”
“She tried on dresses. I waited outside the dressing room. I voted on them. End of story.”
Both my brother and Chelsea seemed to let out a breath they’d been holding. The original plan had been to keep even Chelsea out of the loop about our little fake engagement, but Damon had lasted less than a day before he told her. So she knew what was going on, and knew to worry that I’d wind up sticking my dick into trouble—A.K.A. the wedding planner.
Frankly, I was worried too.
“Were they pretty?” Luna asked.
“She looked great in all of them.”
“oooOoh,” Luna said. She started shimmying while making sleepy eyes and wiggling her eyebrows. “You like her.”
Damon and Chelsea were both glaring openly at me. To be fair, if a six-year-old was seeing through me that easily, it was probably a bad sign.
“You’re right,” I said. “The wedding planner my brother so expertly selected is really great at her job. I’m sure she’s going to make Mindy and I super happy on our wedding day.”
“You’re marrying Milly!” Luna sputtered.
“Mindy,” Chelsea said calmly. “Min-dee. Sweetie. Not Milly.”
“Oh.” Luna sat back, nodding. It wasn’t the first time she’d mixed the two up. “You should’ve picked a girl with a different name. It’s too confusing.”
I grinned.
“What’s the wedding planner’s name?”
“That’s not important,” Damon said.
“Belle,” I answered.
“Ooh, like the princess?” Luna put the back of her hand to her forehead and swooned. Then a serious look entered her face. “But Uncle Chris, you’re too cool to be the beast.”
“Beauty and the Dumbass.” Damon said under his breath.
Chelsea whacked his shoulder but was grinning.
“What did he say?” Luna asked.
“Nothing mature.” Chelsea got up and started gathering our plates, which I noticed were all still mostly untouched except Damon’s. Somehow, my brother had heroically cleaned his extra-large helping of lasagna. The things a man would do to get laid never failed to astound me. Sometimes, I thought mankind would’ve already made it to Mars if we knew we’d find pussy there.